IN WHICH I ARRIVE IN NEW YORK The rain was falling in great gray blobs upon the skylight of the little room in which I opened my eyes on that February morning whence dates the chronological beginning of this autobiography. The jangle of a bell had awakened me, and its harsh, discordant echoes were still trembling upon the chill gloom of the daybreak. Lying there, I wondered whether I had really heard a... more...

Preface AN ALLEGED humorist once proposed the query, "Are all fishermen liars, or do only liars go fishing?" This does not seem to me to be funny. It is doubtless true that a cynical attitude of suspicion and doubt is often exhibited on the recital of a fishing exploit. I believe the joke editors of magazines and newspapers are responsible for the spread of the propaganda of ridicule,... more...

ACT I A charming room in the Tillmans' house. The walls are white woodwork, framing in old tapestries of deep foliage design, with here and there a flaming flamingo; white furniture with old, green brocade cushions. The room is in the purest Louis XVI. The noon sunlight streams through a window on the left. On the opposite side is a door to the hall. At back double doors open into a corridor which... more...

THE HIRED CAR Derby Day fell that year on the first Wednesday in June. By a whim of the British climate, the weather was fine; in fact, no rain had fallen on southern England since the previous Sunday. Wise after the event, the newspapers published cheerful “forecasts,” and certain daring “experts” discussed the probabilities of a heat wave. So London, on that bright Wednesday morning, was agog... more...

NAPOLEONDER[1] [Footnote 1: The Russian peasant's name for Napoleon Bonaparte. The final syllable "der" has perhaps been added because to the ear of the peasant "Napoleon" sounds clipped and incomplete, as "Alexan" would sound to us without the "der."] Long ago—but not so very long ago; our grandfathers remember it—the Lord God wanted to punish the people of the... more...

CHAPTER THE FIRST. OF SUNDRY MY ADVENTURES FROM THE TIME OF MY GOING ABROAD UNTIL MY COMING TO MAN'S ESTATE (WHICH WAS ALL THE ESTATE I HAD).A StrangeNursing-mother—rather a Stepmother of the Stoniest sort—was this Sir Basil Hopwood, Knight and Alderman of London, that contracted with the Government to take us Transports abroad. Sure there never was a man, on this side the land of... more...

CHAPTER ICHOOSING THE WAY What can be expressed in words can be expressed in life.—Thoreau.Yes, my good girl, I am very glad that we are to have the opportunity to enjoy a friendly chat through the medium of the printed page, with its many tongues of type. It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at.—Oliver Wendell Holmes. Just here I have a favor to ask... more...

The Twelve-Forty-Five (For Edward J. Wheeler) Within the Jersey City shedThe engine coughs and shakes its head,The smoke, a plume of red and white,Waves madly in the face of night.And now the grave incurious starsGleam on the groaning hurrying cars.Against the kind and awful reignOf darkness, this our angry train,A noisy little rebel, poutsIts brief defiance, flames and shouts —And passes on, and... more...

INTRODUCTION. This translation of Xenophon’s “Memorabilia of Socrates” was first published in 1712, and is here printed from the revised edition of 1722.  Its author was Edward Bysshe, who had produced in 1702 “The Art of English Poetry,” a well-known work that was near its fifth edition when its author published his translation of the “Memorabilia.”  This was a translation that... more...

VIOLETS. I. "And she tied a bunch of violets with a tress of her pretty brown hair." She sat in the yellow glow of the lamplight softly humming these words. It was Easter evening, and the newly risen spring world was slowly sinking to a gentle, rosy, opalescent slumber, sweetly tired of the joy which had pervaded it all day. For in the dawn of the perfect morn, it had arisen, stretched out its... more...